Years ago, around 2010, I was working at my last school.
(This was the time before I discovered and embraced the unschooling life for my daughter and myself)

One day, during an arts&crafts activity, the children, aged six (around eight of them around that table) were talking about their sandals.
I was sitting at the same table and could follow the entire conversation, but they did not seem to take notice of me.
They were talking about the sandals they were all wearing (yes, all of them) and this particular footwear being of a certain popular brand of cork-type-sandals, which I shall not mention here.

The attention went to one of the eight children, a girl, also six.
Some of the children started telling her that she was not wearing sandals from the particular brand everyone else was wearing and she was made fun of: “Yours are unbranded, cheap copies, lalala.”
This continued (she was told she could not attend an upcoming birthdayparty/could not sit with them)
and this really upset her, obviously.

I don’t know how bold they had to be to do this in front of me!
(I was sitting next to them)
I looked under the table to take a quick look at the sandals (that had this status in the eyes of SIX year olds) and then I looked at hers. They were not plain, like the others were wearing, but with a floral pattern.

I cut them off (I was quite firm) and then said:
“Well, I don’t wear that brand myself and I actually prefer N’s sandals (the girl with the ubranded ones)
They are really pretty and look so comfortable. I would definitely wear those if they sold them in my size.”

The girl N. was really beaming now, but the bullies were speechless and staring at me. I could tell they had expected me to agree with them, really.
Most shocking is that they were SIX year olds.
Nowadays it is probably even worse.

I was reminded of a moment in my own schoolyears, in secondary school.
I was around 14 and remember sitting at the frontdesk in the classroom. I was busy writing something, when I was tapped on my shoulder. I looked up and this girl asks me:

“Do you know who L.L Cool J is?”

I replied with: “Huh?”, before I even realised what she was asking .
(I was too surprised about the random question by someone who had never addressed me before that I didn’t even reply, nor was given the time to, but no, I did in fact not know who it was)
and this girl looks me straight in the eye and says:

“Then you do not belong with us.”

I had no idea what it was I did not belong to. A secret club/friends/L.L admiration group (and to this day I don’t and I wonder at times when I need a laugh, but I’m very happy I didn’t)
It was funny and absurd, really, but not for the fourteen year old me.

Why did the sandals remind me of the above?

Well, I guess I am very UNBRANDED.

I quickly found out who L.L Cool J was, but never wore the branded cork sandals, to this day.
I just don’t care.
I wore a fabric rose pinned on one knee of my jeans. Also aged 14. Then the same L.L Cool J-girl said to me, from behind, loudly:
“There is something on your knee.” I calmly said: “I know. I like it.
Alhough it did feel very unpleasant and there were laughs, I did not stop wearing it.
If I could do that as a shy 14 year old- and peerpressure for teens should not be underestimated, you should see me now!

My daughter seeing me this way, more and more authentically me and her not being around bullies with brands who think they belong, will give her such a headstart. It’s challenging, it takes courage, but most of all it’s freedom.

Unbranded, unbothered ❤️

Mikica

–A blog I did not feel like writing, but one I knew I had to write….-

-TRIGGER WARNING- (bullying of a minor by teacher with sexual undertone)

A true personal story about one teacher who did not deserve my silence then, so now I speak. For myself, now that I have finally found the voice the fourteen/fifteen year old me did not have ❤️

A little background first: When I was in secondary school, I think the second or third year (fourteen and later in the year fifteen years old) one of the compulsory subjects was Dutch literature. Our teacher R.A was a published author, something I only found out later. Unknown and not famous to us but he had published novels. He must have been around 50 years old.

I have no memories of his classes before this all started. My very first one is that we received an assignment to write an essay with arguments to support a political case. Quite a heavy subject for that age, but I had always loved writing and we were free to choose any topic. I put a lot of effort in it, did my research and was satisfied with the result.

I wondered if I should have picked a different, easier topic to write about and I cannot even remember why I chose it, but it does not matter for what I wish to convey.

When we received our grades, mine was rather low compared to my past successes and what other pupils had scored. I showed my parents as they asked about it and I remember my mother wanted to know his reasoning for the low score and how I could have improved it (as he had not mentioned that. He just did not agree with my perspective) I would much rather have left it at that (…) I had never questioned a grade before and would have been happier to make less waves, but they were adamant to pursue it.

After what they thought would be a friendly chat with the teacher (part of it happened in a hallway with the headmaster, I am not sure why, but it was the only time when I was present and where I had wished for an invisibility cloak) they concluded that his personal opinion about my essay’s topic possibly clouded his judgement from details I never found out.

Something that should not have mattered at all in his professional capacity, did. I used articles from the library and some personal, documented facts about what happened to an ancestor of mine. How is a fourteen year old supposed to have well-formed, mature opinions to write about?

My parents then decided to go a step further and asked for a second opinion. Their request was accepted by the school. My work was assessed for a second time, now by a literature teacher who did not know me. This time, the same essay, received a much higher grade (one I had expected in the first place, taking previous writings into account)

The whole situation caused me a lot of embarrassment and anxiety, now worrying how I was to continue classes with this same teacher, but I hoped we could forget about it all. The essay was how it started, but I could not have predicted what would follow.

I was fourteen. A shy, quiet, introvert girl who would sit at the front desks in each classroom, doing her work. Up to that point in time it was as if the teacher had not noticed me, but after the essay, everything was different. It was as if a spotlight was suddenly pointed at me.

Sitting at one of the front desks of the classroom, R.A started to make very frequent eye contact with me. At first I tried to ignore it, but soon I realised it was very intentional. There was no denying it, no matter how hard I tried by diving into the books in front of me. You could feel the stare. Every single class, it was like I had suddenly become his favourite pet, but in the sense of a deranged person’s animal that he first lovingly strokes and then violently chokes. He would stare and smile and there was this feeling of dread the entire time.

He had a preference for certain authors and would always read excerpts from their novels . His favourite parts were the vulgar ones (…) that would cause a stir in the group.

One time, I vividly remember, he was reading one such passage, were the author mentioned the genitals of a cow (I cannot remember the context but I remember the word well) and when uttering the word(s) describing the genitals in detail (!) he looked at me with intent as if addressing only me and formed the words so deliberately with his lips and tongue, while holding his gaze on me. The embarassment was indescribable for me. I would quickly look away. He was only doing this with me, not with the other pupils/students.

Reading this graphic content would have the teenage boys howl, which would encourage him to emphasise it even more (!) There was no literary reason whatsoever to talk about such things or this particular novel in such detail nor to choose this vulgar book, except a predator’s fantasy at work.

At other times , while teaching, he would randomly address me and make rhymes with my surname, loudly spelling it out. He would be looking straight at me while doing this. Every single time. The others saw and heard it. No one even said anything to me about this, although this teacher was disliked by most and went by nasty nicknames.

I literally have no memory of talking about this with schoolmates. Difficult to imagine it was never discussed as it would have been impossible not to have noticed (and we talked about all teachers at length as you do) I have no memory of who sat next to me and what their reaction was, if any. Although my memory is foggy on this part, I must have been worried about the work I yet had to do in his class (would future written work be judged in a biased way or not) and other pupils could not have been blind to his manipulative ways and must have feared him too.

There is more and it gets worse. At other times, during class, and this is something I recall vividly to this day, he would walk around and suddenly sit down on my small desk, his back turned towards my face: his behind/bum…. just a few inches or less from my face (!) while he was lecturing. A very unpleasant, highly embarassing and awkward situation: it had to be seen to be understood how very inappropriate AND intentional it was. He did not do this with any other pupil/student. Another humiliation ritual. Sometimes he would stand next to my desk, an inch away from my arm, uncomfortably long…

My fourteen year old self did not have the capacity to (loudly) object to this unacceptable behaviour. I was frozen, dissociated, scared. I am not describing a leaning position here, I mean fully sitting his bum on my desk, so close to me that there was no escape. Meant to humiliate and degrade me, obviously. The embarrassment was a full body experience. Why did I not complain to the headmaster? (the one who understood our request regarding essay-gate) It was not his word against mine: I had thirty witnesses after all. It never crossed my mind. If it had happened in this day and age it would have been recorded on a phone by someone.

I was outspoken in my essay, but silent about his treatment and I now know why.

This went on until the next schoolyear when I got another teacher. Then, at once, I was liberated. Freed of the staring and sitting on my desk, the loudly spelling and mentioning my name in class, in front of my peers, while smiling at me, over and over again, making my surname rhyme when asking for my opinion on random things, usually of a sexual nature. Possibly other things I have forgotten. It left me terribly embarrassed and humiliated.

I told my parents about my grade that time, but never mentioned what happened after it…..Never. I don’t remember if I even considered telling them. I might have dreaded another confrontation. I thought I had put it behind me once I had another teacher (a completely different experience with a good teacher who was also a good human being) and graduated the year after, until one day, many years later,

I heard something on tv…..

I wasn’t paying attention and doing chores, when, out of the blue, I hear the teacher’s name mentioned. The way a famous (male) Dutch author (bestseller writer) was describing him, quite heated, had my full attention:

“R.A? He is such an arrogant, stuck up literature teacher!”

That was the first time I heard his name after many years and on tv! It was live or I would have listened to that comment a few times. What did he just say? Around the same time, my mother brought me the newest book written by this teacher. We had both never read his work and she found it on sale. I was quite curious actually and did not know what I was about to read. But what followed was not really a surprise.

The novel was about a 32 year old literature teacher who starts a relationship (sexual) with his 17 year old (or 19, cannot remember, but could have in reality been a 15 year old and masked as older as this seems to be a pattern with him….) pupil/student who wears a hijab. He describes in detail how she would “only take off the hijab during their sexual intercourse.” I don’t know how this was received in the media nor if his other novels had similar themes as I did not want to read any of his other works.

The story made me sick to the stomach. They say that authors often write about themselves in their characters and if so, this one was too obvious. In his real life, I found out, the teacher himself was married to an ex-pupil…… (..I was not surprised.. years later I found out we had a mutual friend with his wife. This friend described once that they would come for dinner at her house and that she enjoyed his company and how polite, smart and charming he was……Classic!)

I recognised him in every single word he wrote from the male character’s point of view. His provocative speeches, the bullying, mocking, misogyny, entitlement, perverted and predatory behaviour. His sudden change in attitude, mannerisms, narcissism, the sudden exaggerated focused attention and comments that put me on the spot in front of all pupils. How he tried to degrade me, punish me and how it was visibly turning him on.

I dreaded going to his classes and seriously must have been dissociated to make it through them. Feeling like the centre of unwanted attention for an hour or two, felt like an eternity. I just wanted to mind my own business , learn something and feel safe in that class. None of that was possible because of him.

I started thinking how many pupils he must have treated in the same way over the years or worse. I was one of the first to get out the classroom each time, so I never was alone with him and I had parents who were very involved and he was certainly very aware of that. He was clever and very manipulative. His sense of entitlement was through the roof. He was careful and careless at the same time; never alone with me, but verbally harassed me in front of all my peers, with that constant sexual undertone, both subtle, openly and shameless. He was a classic pervert and narcissist and it was a turn on for him.

Now….let’s not ignore the massive elephant in the room. I was fourteen, not even fifteen yet at the time; this was a P e d o p h i l e. Loud and clear.

He was very unattractive (physically and character wise) and what could have been if he had been very good-looking? (Although as a figure of authority, which a teacher is, physical attractiveness does not even matter and girls are manipulated and seduced by the ugliest of predators due to their position of authority….)

I have waited to write about if for years; being reminded of it is, decades later, still really triggering.

If this was today, the chance of me speaking up would be much higher than my fourteen year old self ever could, although we never know in a situation like that. I have had many a daydream where he would sit down on my desk as usual, just to land on my opened, very sharp, pointy compass. Where my thirty witnesses did support me, loudly through the hallways and where he was fired, leaving the school with his disgusting books.

R.A., well….I heard he has long passed away since. Even if he had not, I would not have wanted to meet and confront him. I have met others, later in life, who sang from the same song sheet. One cannot communicate nor reason with a narcissist and he was more than that.

This is for the fourteen year old me. ❤️ This is for all the girls who are or have been in similar situations and, sadly, more dangerous ones. Where the teacher was the predator instead of your support, as should have been. It was never ever your fault that you were too frozen to speak up❤️ I wish you healing, your strength to come back to you, peace and safety and to be fully free from that evil. May all predators face their deeds forever.

Mikica

Do you know that Vincent van Gogh quote: “If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint”, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”?

It is something I think about a lot. My daughter (8) likes to draw. Now, you see, she likes it very much and is always drawing. Observing her and the freedom she has to do it, in her own time and on her own pace, without judgement, comparison to others/peers or disapproval, is something special. Just encouragement, joy and freedom to explore, develop and pursue what makes her heart sing.

Something that has never crossed my daughter’s mind regarding her art, is something that has always been in mine: I believe I cannot draw, still, to this day. This was ‘planted’ in my mind, first as a little seed, then spread as ugly tentacles, decades further. I was told over and over, from childhood, to my student years, that I cannot draw . One look at the drawing I worked at or the painting I made would be enough for them to know. The disapproving looks, sometimes pity and even loud critisism in front of my peers. The others, whose portrait-noses did not look like bananas, also received loud comments in front of their peers, but of praise.

This wasn’t about those rare moments where you would actually get good advice how to improve your work. That little push you needed to overcome the fear of the blank paper staring back at you. This was about doors closing. “Not good enough and that’s the end of it.”

Each comment of the “professionals”, (art teachers mostly) seemed to cement the belief deeper. “I cannot draw at all!”. I did not realise yet, at the time, how destructive these comments were and how my inner critic was parroting it. I believed them, I believed the voice and all the joy of creating that was left, trickled away after every disapproval. I even started making fun of how ‘untalented’ I was: (since I was now being perceived as not being able to draw by literally everyone) “I can’t even draw a circle!”, I would exclaim, accompanied by a smile. I thought they were right. My drawings looked like the erased Whistler’s mother painting in the Mr.Bean movie…..after the ballpoint stain and his fully devoted, but clumsy and futile attempts to save it. There was no way I could draw from a bird’s-eye perspective, like some so easily could. Dimensions, landscapes…animals, cities…and the toughest of all: portraits…The assignments they gave were just out of my league.

My discomfort did not come from my toddler-like-art. It came from how it was approached.

You cannot draw? The “cannot draw”, is hardly possible. How could it be? Everyone can draw with functions in tact. What it is, is that someone thinks you don’t draw according to their demands or expectations. Not everyone needs to be a Rembrandt. A Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir. Mediocre is good.(some less than mediocre artists earn millions) Enjoying the process of creation is even better.

The art teachers who made me believe this lie, consciously or unconsciously, had something elitist about them and were very bad teachers. Not much teaching was happening at all. An Art is for the few-attitude (cue very posh accent) “Not everyone is or can be an artist!”  I wonder how they perceive the “Peanut butter on a carpet” that sold for a high price….. The paintings that are just one big blue canvas. The glasses left forgotten in a corner in a museum that made visitors think it was part of an exhibition……. The Mondrian painting that hung ‘upside down’ and no one knew for decades……Artificial Intelligence paintings……

Or…what about…The people with disabled limbs painting with their mouth or feet? The non-verbal man who draws entire cities from above, just from memory? The microscopic carving of items done in between heart beats? Three dimensional art on a lift floor that makes people hesitate to enter?

I read something, somewhere, saying:

-Perfectionism is about the creation, not the creator-

This stuck with me. The perpetual disapproval made me forget, entirely, about ME. They changed my inner voice, but they did not make me into them. I treasure all my daughter’s drawings. They did not make me believe that I am not creative. I always knew I was. I think I should start again, after decades of barely drawing, inspired by my daughter being free of those chains that held me for too long. Not to be underestimated, this will require hard work and persistence. Deleting the ugly comments of the even uglier people, one by one. Erasing the internalised lie and dismissing that jury once and for all.

Children drawing and painting with joy? Oh…let them….! Encourage them! May they never have to filter out nor battle the internalised lie.

For all you of out there still hearing the critics voice: Let’s be free, make art, good enough, ugly, mediocre or great, as a celebration of no judgement, an “I can draw- party”, an I’m good enough-celebration and a middle-finger to the failed art teachers. Get that pencil/brush to work and start with a…circle? 🙂 ❤️ 

(replace “art teacher” with any other subject and realise what happens to children, worldwide, on a daily basis and what impact it has on their future…..)

While I have very few memories of my primary school years (hardly any between 5 and 10 years of age and those I am starting to recollect are not pleasant) I have many of secondary school. I reckon not less traumatic, but there were some characters along the way that brightened those dark days and left me with some nicer memories too. (For context, I was about fourteen/fifteen years old at that time)

One, perhaps the most memorable character, was my geography teacher Mister Thay.

He was a born storyteller and we would never know beforehand where the hour spent with him would take us. Interesting, as the subject was Geography! Growing up in Indonesia and having travelled far and wide, he had many stories to tell. He was fair, very direct, chaotic, creative and had a great sense of humour.

Sitting front row with my friend, we had the best seats in the house. He would always sit while teaching, while playing with his keys.

He would usually start with the topic of the day, let’s say topography of the African continent. He would then, in the middle of an exploration of vegetation, make a connection to an experience he had, growing up in the Indonesian countryside. He would bring up grandma’s cooking. Describing the ingredients she used, his face would change expressions as if he was there again, for a brief moment, taste testing her freshly made sambal and grandma would be asking for her little boy’s approval, asking: “hot enough?”, which would come with just a firm nod and smile of his fiery red cheeks and lips. Coming back to reality, he would mention a tribe in Papua New Guinnea where they made a similar side dish that was still nowhere near his grandma’s creation. This would be followed, every single time, by a loud exclamation of “how did I get to this point?!“, “I digress!” or “who distracted me?!”

His classes started and ignited my obsession for maps and topography.

One time, he told us a story of a teambuilding day he had with all teachers from the school. I cannot remember why he shared it with us, just that he clearly enjoyed talking about it and I am so glad he gave us this little peak behind the curtain. He described how these days made him feel as:

“I was bored out of my mind”

and later I came to realize that this sentence summarised my entire schooling, student-years and most of my job.

He told us about his partner-in-crime on those days and it was colleague Mrs.Shim . Now, at this moment, my friend, sitting next to me- and I looked at each other in total disbelief. Mrs. Shim was the physical education teacher, the Victorian sports lover with her Spartan methods (see a few posts below for a few words about her) Her hair looked like a white, unused mop and she was thin as a stick. As I knew, in my attempts to avoid the P.E lessons, I sat next to her often, she smelled of old attics and unwashed second hand clothes that were stored for a while. A possible friendship between her and our beloved Mr.Thay was as unlikely as anything.

She was Mr. Thay’s partner-in-crime?

He continued with his story about that day. Mr.Thay and Mrs.Shim were both bored out of their minds on the teambuilding day, while other colleagues seemed to obediently do what they were told: follow the planning of the day, participate in the activities in groups they were placed in. Now, these activities are often so generic, without taking experience, personal interests, nor individual preferences into account. Our bored duo, with both over two decades of experience under their belts, had no intention of wasting their time on making spider-diagrams all day. According to Mr.Thay, they always had ideas to beat the boredom.

Mr.Thay would go down to reception (it was always being held in a shabby yet large hotel) and make up a story for an emergency message to be broadcast through the intercom (apparently the hotel’s conference hall had such a system) The message could be: “Will the owner of a blue Ford Taunus, registration XP-14-LD come down immediately please, you are blocking the exit in the garage.“ The Ford Taunus being Mrs.Shim’s car. She would run down, knowing full well her car was not blocking any entrance.

In another instance, Mrs.Shim would have hotel staff tell a certain colleague there was a call from their vet’s office. Resulting in confusion, at times. He continued- Before the lunch buffet, they would replace shrimps with tiny pink marshmallows. They would put funny badges on instead of their names, ‘out-of-order’ signs on all lifts and ‘wet paint’ signs on the stairs. It beat the boring activities by far.

I listened to his story, breathless, laughing at times and all the while signaling to my friend, in disbelief, how this could be the same Mrs.Shim, our dreaded P.E teacher. Mr.Thay confirmed it was and calling her by her first name now made our confusion reach a climax.

I think of this still, till this day. Firstly, as we perceived teacher Shim as a Dictator with hair like a mop on a thin stick, an entity devoid of all emotion. This experience made her….. somehow….a bit more human. Someone with a pet perhaps, a love for fine wines, strolls on a Sunday morning? Reading detectives, gardening, playing scrabble, jazz music?

Although I had trouble believing that this same person could be so witty and fun to be around, with a mind of her own, hearing this made her a little human, no matter how much I detested her lessons. No matter how this alter-ego was hidden from us. I wish she would have showed that side and wondered why she never did. But now I knew it existed inside her.

Secondly, when I experienced team building days myself, later, when I was a teacher (albeit primary school, but same thing) I realised the ‘bored out of my mind’ scenario..I wish I could have had a partner-in-crime this funny, during my entire career.

In the last school I worked there was a colleague with a similar sense of humour and on such days, if we had the luck to be in the same group, while doing some pointless, time-wasting activity, (there might have been a point to it for some, but not for us) we would howl with laughter, while others would get irritated as we were not serious enough with the activities (those that bored you out of your mind) or uncomfortable, because they were too scared to stand out from the crowd and we reminded them of it.

Mr.Thay would have been a great asset on those days and now that I think of it, perhaps his style rubbed off on me: I tend to jump from one story to the other as well.

I could see him and Mrs.Shim, now a little bit more human, sitting on a bench in the shabby hotel lobby, chewing on marshmallows instead of shrimps, plotting their next prank, to get through the boring days. It reminds me of a time, a decade later, when a pupil, while I was teaching my own class, that one time, saw me eat instant noodle soup (they would usually only see me eat fruit and salads as it would be early in the day) He looked at me and said: ” Oh, I’m so happy to see you eat a warm meal for once!” Perhaps, for a brief moment there, he saw me as a little bit more human.

Dedicated to Mr.Thay, who made me see, early on, that learning never can, is not, nor should ever be boring.

❤️